It takes a special kind of maniac to decide to strike out alone to a place he’s never been, drink with total strangers in the middle of the week and rock out to bands he only discovered a month ago.

Conventional wisdom would say rather stay at home, put the kettle on and watch Friends reruns but there’s only so much Earl Grey and David Schwimmer a man can take before he loses his fucking mind.

Bands In Town (www.bandsintown.com) mailed me to say DZ Deathray were playing at the Boileroom in Guildford, so I got on the nearest train and, like a creepy public masturbator, went to go lurk at the bar alone.

I know I’ve said it before, but there’s something about this band that resonates deeply inside me. Their songs and videos are incredible, dark and light constantly swirling, caught in an endless tango.

There’s a yearning in their music, a quiet desperation, a caged animal underneath it all gnawing at the bars in the dead of night. I can’t wait to hear their new album because truth is I’m still reeling from the last one.

They released this video a month ago, I watched it in a pub on a sweltering summer day near Waterloo Station. A lot has happened since then, enough that I can empathise with the guy in this video.

I can’t escape this feeling that somewhere out there there is a band or a person writing and playing music right now that is so fucking good that if I could just find it, if I could just hear one song, it would stay with me for life.

It’s a problem with me. I look out over the cityscape sometimes or I look at pictures of sleepy suburbs or big skyscrapers or even log cabins in the woods, totally isolated and termite-ridden.

I look at those pictures and I wonder if someone somewhere inside one of those buildings or houses or on one of those streets is playing a song that could change my life.

I did a launch in Joburg about two weeks ago, can’t mention the client but to give you an idea, it was for a skincare product that is primarily used by black women.

The beauty tips and secrets I have learned working on this account could fill the beauty pages of every women’s magazine in the country for six months. Never has my skin looked so radiant or felt so gloopy.

Naturally, once the launch was over my inner-savage was gnawing at the bars of his cage for whisky, pool and drug-fuelled rock music to balance out champagne, classy R&B and abundance of pink I’d been exposed to throughout the day.

It ain’t over till it’s over. So fucked up how the world works – you take work home, some fucking brain-meltingly gigantic piece of hell you have to work through and guaranteed, fucking guaranteed, your kid cries all night.

I walked around with my daughter in my arms for an entire fucking hour 12.30am to 1.30am. My shoulder is fucked. You think lifting weights fucks you up? Try just holding an 8kg weight for an hour and we’ll talk.

Anyway, let’s just play this Black Keys track off the new album and try to put it all behind us for a day or two. The Black Keys understand. They got your back home-boi.

If you don’t know Cults, it’s time you did something about that. If you asked me what are my top three one-girl-one-guy bands, it would definitely be Blood Red Shoes, The Kills and Cults, hands down.

In close fourth would be The White Stripes, but only because they haven’t put anything out since Icky Thump which is a fucking killer album but that was what, 2007?

Anyway, Cults only have two albums out so far, their self-titled debut from 2011 and Static which dropped a couple weeks back and both albums are really solid. Vintage indie loaded with nostalgia, slick hooks and mesmerising vocals.

There is fucking amazing music being created at the moment, anyone who tells you otherwise has no idea what the hell they’re talking about and you probably shouldn’t hang out with them anymore.

“But where do I find all this cool music Papa Slick?” I hear you ask in desperation. Well, I have my methods but they involve a shit-ton of sifting through music sites and listening to rubbish before I strike gold.

Good news is when that happens, I put all my best finds together into badass playlists like the one that follows below and all you have to do is kick back, click “play” and let the good times roll muthufukkah!

It’s no secret that I think Taxi Violence is one of SA’s most talented and badass bands currently playing, just read my review of their last album here and my write up of their Synergy 2011 performance here.

There’s just something about this band that connects with my deep, dark, whisky-drinking soul y’know? The desert / southern rock / blues influence definitely has something to do with it, that shit really speaks to me.

So I was pretty stoked to find out that they’re about to drop a new album in July called Soul Shake which you can bet your ass I’ll be reviewing here on the site soon as I can get my filthy mitts on it.

Seriously, I fucking love you man. And no, I’m not writing this in some deranged, sleep deprived state like the last post. If anything, I’m a thousand times the man I was when I banged that one out.

Sure, I’m operating on four hours sleep as I write this and I dragged myself through a gym session that would kill a man half my age, but you have to understand, when Nick Cave releases a new album, my world is complete.

I tweeted this video yesterday evening, but it’s go fucking intense I figured I’d put it up on the site as well. It’s from 2010 so my internet standards it’s pretty ancient, but wow. It gave me goosebumps.

The band is Nico Vega and the track’s called “Fe Fi Fo Fum”. If you don’t know this band, you need to get into their debut, self titled album right now before the follow-up lands later this year.

Truth be told, the guitar and drum parts in this song are both a little average, but frontlady Aja Volkman’s vocals are so fucking intense the hairs on the back of my neck stood up watching this.